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When do you Respect Leader

An organization’s top leader is responsible for motivating and driving effective communication through the People Channel. In order to accomplish this, they must do a number of things. First, they must specifically let managers and supervisors know what is expected of them and follow up consistently to check their progress. The top leader must also establish the measurement tools – business metrics – that can record the communication success of the People Channel.

Metrics about communication in an organization are effective if the metric results clearly track with communication and if the members of the organization recognize this connection. Research that links communication with business results and shows the quality of information flowing through the People Channel can help demonstrate On Strategy communication at work. Certain research approaches, such as hierarchical linear modeling, can show which communication behaviors result in positive results. Likewise, measuring how information flows throughout an organization can demonstrate management’s communication effectiveness and provide a concrete way to evaluate areas in which communication needs to be improved.

Top leaders should also encourage and reinforce communication by rewarding leaders in the organization who demonstrate excellent communication and holding accountable the leaders who fail to improve. When leaders identify parts of the organization that are not functioning as they should because of communication problems, they should make it a priority to intervene and correct the problem promptly.

Lastly, the leader must show their commitment to communication through their words and actions. They must speak openly with their fellow leaders and with the organization as a whole on a frequent basis